


tattooed and hot (like the streets)

by boxerzayn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, M/M, and english, both mummies boys thats super cute, but its cuteeeee, im not rlly happy with the ending, logics isnt my strong side, niall is pale, spain!!!!!!!!!!!!!, they live in spain, they work like one hour a day and still afford a nice apartment, theyre cute thats all that counts, ummmm what else, whatever!!!!!!!!!!!, zayn talks spanish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:40:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxerzayn/pseuds/boxerzayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a wee bit of plot at the end but mostly it’s just zayn and niall and the home they’ve made in eachothers arms in barcelona. warm, spicy, smoky, touristy, fruity barcelona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tattooed and hot (like the streets)

**Author's Note:**

> i've been to barcelona and blanes once so i know what it looks like, mostly, but other from that i can't say i know much what it's like to live in spain. i don't own them or their familys and all hope u like it lol

“‘was on the phone with me mum earlier” niall says, looks up at zayn. smoke slips out of his mouth as he speaks. zayn tapps at the filter of his cigarette. there’s indian music playling in the background.  
“yeah?”  
“yeah. miss ‘er alot, y’know. ‘s been months.”  
zayn nodds, clapps niall on the back. his hand feels warm through the soft tanktop.  
“we’ll go see her, soon.” zayn comforts him. “or, we could fly’r out, let her see how we have it here and stuff”  
“yah” niall smiles, and kills the cigarette.

usually he isn’t like this. he loves living in spain. in barcelona. with his zayn. it’s just, some days, it gets a little too much and for a couple of minutes he wants to be back in ireland, back where people are, somehow, more like him. but he loves zayn and he could’ve dragged him with him back to ireland because zayn loves niall too, but he’s stayed. he will always stay.  
they live on a long, narrow street in the middle of barcelona. well, not in the middle-middle, not close to the fancy hotels and the water, but it’s central enough to be alive.  
the street would be rather dark, night-time atleast, if it wasn’t for the neon lights surrounding the big windows, telling everyone that yes, come here if you want to buy a thick telivision or an indian sarrong or a some old olives, we have the best thick telivisions and indian sarrongs and old olives!  
the streets have a lot of people from different countries. india, irac, pakistan, a little bit of everywhere.  
they all talk some sort of mix of english, spanish and their own old language with each other and, it kind of works.  
the tattoed walls of the houses nobody lives in work, too, even though they made the streets look rough at first, for niall. zayn looks a little like that, too, but he’s a complete softy.  
the language is a little bit hard for niall. he knows some spanish, can talk enough, but it’s not enough enough, zayn and him almost always talk english.  
zayns spanish is beautiful. it sounds like sirup in nialls ears. his english is, like sirup with a little salt in, but niall has learned to love the accent and love the dirty streets and the muslim shops and the spanish fruits and the way they eat late at night and take siesta in the middle of the day.  
barcelona is hot, and he’s only experienced a couple of days of it last year, his first days in spain, and it almost sent him back to ireland, so hot was it.  
but zayn was hot too, so hot niall could barely take it either, that day almost a year ago when he stepped into the tourist shop, and zayn was sitting on that stupid black stool. and after all, zayn ended up being the reason he stayed, and well. yeah.

when they first mooved in together, niall had trouble sleeping, had from the very first day of the loud shouting and beeping and singing and brumming and all the other sounds outside his window, and zayn had made him a mixplaylist of slow rnb songs he could listen to to tune out the noises.  
he has comen to like drake and frank ocean and the other artists zayn right out worshipes. for him, they are spain and stubble and sun and brooky streets and noises and greasy food and indian shops and toothless smiles and zayns charming family and black hair and a squeaky shower and red wine at lunch and it is yellow and red and spain.  
the mornings are nialls favourites, he’s sure of every morning. they always sleep in late, never have to get to the tourist shop until twelve; doniya and juan have got it fixed until then. niall wakes up first, untangles himself from un-needed sheets and sticky skin and earphones and slips into his chopped off sweatpants only, and heads down to the tiny grocery store just next to their apartment.  
there isn’t much to buy there, exept water (you can’t just drink the water from the faucet here, he’s had to learn), snickers bars and water melons. and cheap liquor and gross old popcorn and sweaty bread, but he always gets just the water and a melon and smiles and small-talks to the old man behind the tiny desk and gives an extra pound, because the tourism is good this time of year, but, yeah. the old man’s worn the same green shirt every morning since fucking june.  
niall then pops in at the bakery a little down the street, buys a baguette, and by the time he slips through the door to the apartment, zayn is in the shower loudly singing and niall smiles as he makes breakfast.  
they drink tea; something had to be like back home in ireland, but exept for that; spanish people rarely eat breakfast, so zayn just drowns a couple of water-melon slices, while niall eats the bread.  
there’s usually a very comfortable silence at the breakfast table, sometimes they have the telly on but the only telivision show niall ever watches in spanish is football, and, yeah. silence is okay. that’s the thing with them, niall thinks. is that it’s fine to be quiet, to not say anything you don’t mean or that the other person already knows, just for the saying.  
not that they can’t be loud and silly, though. zayns fater always says they’re like two fiveyearolds, niall and zayn.

work is pretty boring, usually. now it’s august, and there are a lot of tourism, so the flow of people is usually quite heavy by the time they come to the shop, but that kinda sucks, too, because there isn’t any time to hang out, then.  
the people are often very nice though, and relieved when niall speaks to them in english. niall knows the feeling.  
it’s nialls first job, and it’s not much pay, not really, but whatever. it’s spain, twenty percent of the people have no job at all.  
it’s spain.  
spain is nialls first a lot. first foreign county to visit. first time to live on his own. (he lives with zayn now, but, y’know. without mum)  
zayn was his first boyfriend too. the one who took his virginity.  
it was good, really good. slow, warm, hot breaths and hot red wine in his blood and yellow sun sipping in through the window, and it was passionate and spain spain spain. zayn zayn zayn. sounds almost the same. niall laughs. does that alot.  
niall met zayns parents the first time a couple of weeks after that thet started going out. zayn always talks about his mum. he loves her a lot, zayn can tell, by the was his eyes look when he speaks of her.   
niall’s talked to juan about it, and he just said something about how silly niall was and that zayn looks like that when he talks about him too, and that’s not true, but yeah. zayn does adore him. he tells him, and when he doesn’t, he shows it in the way his body is always next to nialls, always trying to fit around him, like a black cat slinking around his owners legs. exept it’s the other way around, zayn is nialls owner. he’s got niall so far up his ass he got the boy to stay in spain for god knows how much longer than the originall two months.  
niall does love it though; loves their dirty, indian street and the way zayn speaks spanish and the slit in zayns eyebrow that has almost grown out from all those months ago. he loves the food and the late nights and the warm sea and the mornings when zayn counts his freckles to see if there has comen any knew ones, and the mornings when he wakes up and zayn is asleep. he loves zayn and zayns body and zayns tattoos and zayns cigarettes and zayns spicy colgone and he loves the tiny grocery shop and the bakery and the children on his street and the spanish sun and he even loves the fucking alcoholics at the corner without any teeth. he fucking loves everything.  
zayn is always tan, like an endless chotolate bar niall can never have enough of. but himself. he.  
he is irish, okay. gets a little red on his cheeks when he’s out all day but mostly he’s just white.  
zayn says he loves it though. that here niall’s speciall and that he can see him from the other end of barcelona when there are no tourists.  
niall laughs at that, laughs at just about everything zayn does, even   
when it’s just funny because it’s zayn(zayn could make him giggle from just saying goddamn hello.)   
they work so good like that, because niall can talk, always talk, when zayn wants to take a step back, and when he wants to be silly and loud (and nialls favourite zayn,) he can, because niall will just make him feel good about it.  
they fit. mold together as a master piece, when zayn snuggles up next to him.   
zayn is a piece of art on his own; but he needs feelings, needs a niall, to make it matter.  
they’ve been to the mirou-museum up on the hill.  
zayns mother’s told them about when there was no train and when they had to walk all the way up to look at the paintings and sculptures at the museum.  
zayn’s mother is great. she kind of fills up the hole in nialls chest where he always had his own mum. still has got her, of course, but not here, not in barcelona, two blocks away, like trisha.  
she’s very pretty, trisha, british-but-mooved-to-spain-when-she-was sixteen-trisha, and niall knows zayn will age as beautiful as she has. (“if you’re not pretty when we’re fifty there’s no way i’m staying in this hell, zayn”  
“yeah, yeah, whatever. just go for my mum if y’think she’s fitter, then”)  
his father is nice, too. a little bit intimidating with his big figure, nothing like zayns skinny one, but he has kind eyes that are very much like zayns, and he got niall a job for christs sake.  
they’ve welcomed him like a part of the family, even the little sisters who are always clinging on him. (“god niall, they think you’re so handsome. i’m grossed out” “sweetie, you know no malik other than you is getting it from me. god, you’re so jealous”) (zayn had laughed loudly at that, and his laugh spread in the room and some of it landed in niall and he laughed too, warm and dizzy, and it was perfect.)

every week they go actual grocery shopping, buy toilet paper and fruit and cereal and they’re fucking lucky that they are gay and don’t have any girls in their little family, because tampons are expensive here.  
the apartment is yellow and white on the inside. they have the bedroom wich is quite big and nice, and a toilet and kitchen, and a small balcony with a table where they eat dinner and zayn smokes his cigarettes.  
the walls are thin and they can hear every time the spanish couple next door have sex. offcourse, they can here whenever zayn and niall do it too, and it’s a little alarming, but none of them are very loud, just zayn sometimes if he is bottoming. wich he rarely is. he’s a top. between the two of them, anyways. nialls pretty sure zayn has shagged lots of dudes before him.  
“how many people have you had sex with?” he asks one day over dinner.  
zayn chokes on his chicken and laughs.  
“not many.” he chuckles. “nah, had a couple of girlfriends before you, but, not. um. not any boys. ‘xept juan” he adds quitly, and niall bursts into a loud laughter.  
“juan?” niall exclaims.”but you fucking work with him? jesus”  
“irlandés” zayn mutters. irishmen.  
as if it has something to do with being irish that niall thinks you dont just fuck your colegues.  
niall thinks he’d maybe have a go at zayns big sister doniya though, if it wasn’t for zayn. (zayn’s quite spot on about the fact that niall has the hots for pretty much every malik family member) and they work together. zayn and him work together too, offcourse, and they have a whole lot of sex, so it’s whatever.  
“whatever” he says.  
“what?” zayn asks, turning his big brown eyes to niall.  
“nothing” niall mumbles. “go back to sleep.”  
zayn lets his head reast on nialls chest. it sends warmth right through it and into niall’s heart, and it probably doesn’t really, but. yeah. nialls heart speeds up and slows down due to te safety and comfort he feels next to zayn. it’s weird. a heart can’t beat super fast and super slow at the same time.  
niall doesn’t really know how, but he likes this. how he doesn’t really understand anything. doesn’t understand zayn, the language, zayns religion. doesn’t understand how to find anything in this fucking town. but he loves it because he is alive and theres frank ocean in one ear and a horn beeping from outside in the other, and his heart is beating fast and slow at the same time, and he has hos own fricking zayn malik, and it’s good.

 

—-

 

zayn had mentioned it, he had, but niall had never really though much of it. but then when he came home from playing football on the street with some spanish friends, zayn had ordered a flight for nialls mother to spain and then there was that.  
it’s a friday and september and niall and zayn got up early in the morning to not have to deal with the mid-day kaoz in the traffic on their way out of barcelona.  
zayn has borrowed his fathers car and niall has bought a watermelon and snickers bars at the tiny supermarket next to their apartment for the trip.  
september is nice, weather-wise. it’s warm but not suffocatingly hot. niall and zayn’s one-year anniversery is in a couple of days.  
they pick up nialls mother at the airport outside blanes at four o’clock . niall hugs her tighly for a couple of minutes, drags in the sweet scent of her hair and he doesn’t cry, no, but. yeah. he’s just so happy to see her again.   
“it’s been forever, you stupid boy” maura says through sobs, niall knows she’s just happy.  
he pulls away, straightens his back, pulls zayn to his side.   
“mum, this is zayn, my boyfriend, um. zayn, this is mum.”  
zayn smiles sweetly, stretches out for nialls mother and kisses her cheek.  
“so nice to finally meet you.” he says, in his most charming voice. “niall has talked so much about you.”  
niall squirms. he’s so proud to show zayn of, to be honest.  
“well aren’t you a handsome spanish lad” maura laughs, and niall whispers “half british half paki, actually.”  
zayn drives the three of them to blanes and the hotel him and niall payed for.  
they have ordered two rooms, one single and one double, and once they’ve put all of mauras bags in the single room, they head down to the beach.  
“you’ve gotten more tan.” she constates. still can’t stop smiling, eyes wrincling.  
niall barks out a laugh, and zayn chuckles. “really? zayn tells me i’m pale.”   
the three of them laugh, zayn blushes, and oh, he is so cute.   
“alright, alright. but you can’t compare yourself to the people here, niall honey.”  
the water in blanes is bluer and clearer and niall is almost as delighted as his mother. he’s only ever been to barcelona.  
the streets are less messy, the houses cleaner and the village over all is more touristy. the hotel has a beautiful view over the sea, lies on the most beautiful, stony, foresty hill.  
“how on earth could you afford this, darlings?” nialls mum asks fondly. niall smiles. he knows she likes zayn already.   
“we work at my fathers, um, tourist shop back in barca, actually.” zayn explaines. his accent is very spanish, and niall hasn’t really noticed until he has his mothers irish one as comparision.  
they have a beautiful couple of days in blanes. it’s a gorgeous little town, all dark green trees and orange sand and dry farms and dry sand and clear water and brown and white pittoresk houses, and niall loves it, allthough not as much as barcelona.  
they try to be quiet at night so maura doesn’t hear them but zayn fucks niall into the matress of the hotellbed so hard that niall comes without even touching his dick, and it. just. zayn is so beautiful.  
on the last day of their little vacation it’s niall and zayns one year anniversery as a couple and zayn takes niall up the hill and sits him down under an old dry tree. they can see out over the water and the white town beneeth them, and they drink champage and kiss and it’s all happy grinns and bubbly laughs and bubbly drinks and butterflies and it’s funny, to niall, how he could find his soulmate on a trip to barcelona of all places. in a british-paki boy who works at a small tourist shop and has percied ears and black hair that looks kinda stray but is super soft.  
he sighs and zayn sighs and they laugh and it’s so so perfect.  
the next day they, with maura in the backseat, try to find their way back to barcelona in zayns fathers old car.  
it’s hot to be september today, but niall and zayn are used to it, zayn atleast, and maura claims it’s a nice change from the chilly autumn in ireland.  
the road is beautiful and zayn is so beautiful that niall would have pulled over and given him a blowjob if it wasn’t for his mum in the backseat.  
back in barcelona the two boys show maura their apartment, she says the likes the yellow walls and the balcony and zayn agrees.  
they go for dinner at zayns family home and there are sisters everywhere, all dolled up for the special visitor niall notices, and it all goes so smooth.  
when he falls alseep that night with zayn cuddled up to him everything feels like home, and the mix of smells, irleland and mums perfume, and spicy cologne and smoke, collide so beautifully and his chest feels full.  
“thankyou” he whispers to zayn, but he’s fast asleep. “thankyou. when i escaped to barcelona i never thought i’d be this happy”  
and he didn’t. he never expected all this, these brooky streets that now are home, these blackhaired people that now are his family. it’s so lovely he thinks he might just faint but he falls asleep instead.


End file.
